Saddam pleads innocent

[SevenRoundMags]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A judge on Wednesday adjourned the trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants until Nov. 28, after Saddam pleaded innocent to murder and other charges, questioned the court’s authority and scuffled with guards.

The main reason for the adjournment was because some 30 to 40 witnesses had been too scared to show up, the presiding judge said.

“They were too scared to be public witnesses,” Rizgar Mohammed Amin told Reuters. “We’re going to work on this issue for the next sessions.”
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A secondary reason was that the defense had requested a three-month delay to review the evidence.

Raad Jouhi, the investigating magistrate who prepared the case, told a news conference after the first session that the five-week adjournment was a “reasonable” response to the defense request.

The first session lasted just three hours, during which presiding judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin read the defendants their rights and the charges against them — which also include torture, forced expulsions and illegal imprisonment in a case involving the massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in 1982.

Amin then asked each for their plea. He started with the ousted dictator, saying “Mr. Saddam, go ahead. Are you guilty or innocent?”

Saddam — holding a copy of the Quran he brought with him into the session and held throughout — replied quietly, “I said what I said. I am not guilty,” referring to his arguments earlier in the session.

Amin read out the plea, “Innocent.”

The confrontation later became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room. When two guards tried to grab his arms to escort him out, he angrily shook them off.

They tried to grab him again, and Saddam struggled to free himself. Saddam and the guards shoved each other and yelled for about a minute.

It ended with Saddam getting his way, and he was allowed to walk independently, with the two guards behind him, out of the room for the break.

First criminal trial of Arab leader
Many Iraqis and others across the Middle East were glued to their television sets to watch the first-ever criminal trial of an Arab leader.

The proceedings were aired with about a 20-minute delay on state-run Iraqi television and on satellite stations across Iraq and the Arab world. But technical quality was poor, with the sound cutting out frequently and the picture going blank several times.

But a too-busy President Bush did not watch, even as the White House hailed the trial as a key step in Iraq’s transition to a functioning democracy.

“Saddam Hussein is facing Iraqi justice,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. “The trial is a symbol that the rule of law is returning to Iraq. We hope this trial will help bring some closure for the Iraqi people to their country’s dark past.”

Neighboring Iran, which fought a 1980-88 war with Iraq, welcomed the trial’s start but said Saddam should be charged with invading Iran.

Still president?
Earlier, at the opening of the trial, the 68-year-old ousted Iraqi leader — looking thin with a salt-and-pepper beard in a dark gray suit and open-collared white shirt — stood and asked the presiding judge: “Who are you? I want to know who you are.”

“I preserve my constitutional rights as the president of Iraq,” Saddam said. “I do not recognize the body that has authorized you and I don’t recognize this aggression. What is based on injustice is unjust ... I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect.”

Amin, a Kurd, tried to get Saddam to formally identify himself, but Saddam refused. After several moments, he sat down.

Amin later read the charges against Saddam and his co-defendants, advising them they face possible execution if convicted in a 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in Dujail, Iraq, after a failed attempt on the former dictator’s life.

The chief prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, said the prosecution had videos of Saddam personally interrogating four Dujail residents soon after his motorcade was fired on.

Saddam countered that videotapes should not be admissible as evidence, insisting they can be altered and faked. The judge did not respond to his argument.

Prosecutors have said that they brought the Dujail case against Saddam first — rather than more notorious atrocities in which far more people were killed — because they had more solid, easy-to-gather evidence on Dujail, including documents and videos showing the then-leader's role.

Saddam and his co-defendants — top officials and lower civil servants from his Baathist regime — were called in one by one into the courtroom.

After sitting, Saddam greeted his co-defendants, saying “Peace be upon you,” sitting next to co-defendant Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court.

The other defendants include Saddam’s former intelligence chief Barazan Ibrahim, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and other lower-level Baathist civil servants.

Ramadan also refused to identify himself to the judge. “I repeat what President Saddam Hussein has said,” he added. The other defendants agreed to state their names.

Irony of trial setting
A panel of five judges will both hear the case and render a verdict in what could be the first of several trials of Saddam for atrocities carried out during his 23-year-rule.

The trial is taking place in the marble building that once served as the National Command Headquarters of his feared Baath Party. The building in Baghdad’s Green Zone — the heavily fortified district where Iraq’s government, parliament and the U.S. Embassy are located — was ringed with 10-foot blast walls and U.S. and Iraqi troops. Several Humvees and at least one tank were deployed outside, and U.S. soldiers led sniffer dogs around the grounds, looking for explosives.

The identities of judges have been a tightly held secret to ensure their safety, though Amin’s name was revealed on Wednesday just before the trial began.

I really hope someone draws a pistol and empties the magazine into him while he's being transported.

[Dracula]

And why do you want him dead??



Me, I could care less what happens to him. They can let him go and I wouldn't give a rats.

[AndrewTB]

The US should not get involved in this court case. The Iraqi people are those who should work on this solely which they pretty much are. If the people want him to be freed then shall be it. If the iraqi people want him in charge again I would not be mad. The people get what they want.

[yorec]

Of course he pled innocent. (Not guilty) If he did otherwise, they'd have him executed inside a month. Sadaam is a bad guy, not an idiot.

[MicroBalrog]

If the iraqi people want him in charge again I would not be mad. The people get what they want

Who cares about the Kurds?

[Low Key]

So Saddam still thinks he's president of Iraq...big ego, but no big surprise. He's killed and maimed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of lives, the Iraqi people will decide what they want to do with him and thats good, let them work that out on their own. The more they can run their own country the better, they need this trial and its outcome as another step towards becoming an independant nation once again. After 30 odd years of oppression they are learning to be a nation again instead of pawns to a ego-maniac.

[Rebar]

There's no way he's getting out of this alive.

It's a matter of how much they want to charge him with, since if they charge him with everything he's done, the trial will last 100 years.

[Eghad]

empty a magazine into him......lol

that sounds like waht Saddam would have done

nice to see some folks really spreading the word about our ideals of a justice system.

[SevenRoundMags]

empty a magazine into him......lol

that sounds like waht Saddam would have done

nice to see some folks really spreading the word about our ideals of a justice system.

I never said it would be court-ordered or done by someone in an authority position. I meant a ****** off Iraqi getting the job done himself